Mass E-mailing and Faxing with Outlook and Mail Merge

If you use Outlook 2002, creating personalized mass e-mailings and faxes is almost as simple as creating and merging a form letter. Here's how:

For either mass e-mail or faxes, choose E-mail messages in the first step of the Mail Merge Wizard. Complete the e-mail message or fax as if it were a form letter, using the instructions in the preceding section.

Attach a recipient list and preview the messages or faxes with live data in Step 5 of the wizard.

In the final step of the Mail Merge Wizard, choose to merge to Electronic Mail. In the Merge to E-mail dialog box (see Figure 20.7), choose which Outlook Contact field you want to merge to. Most often, you'll either choose E-mail_Address or Business_Fax. Type a subject, if you like, and click OK.

Figure 20.7. If you want to send the same fax to many people, tell the Mail Merge Wizard that you want to create e-mail messages, and then choose Business_Fax in this very last step.

Word performs the merge, and transfers the merged e-mail messages or faxes to your Outlook outbox.